Living a Jewish life in Africa

TALI FEINBERG

“I often do a talk called ‘Being Frum in the Foreign Service’,” says Daniel Renna, an observant Jew and American diplomat who has served in Armenia, Slovakia, The Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – and is currently serving as a political-economic counsellor to the US embassy in Gaborone, Botswana.

Renna met his wife, Adela, in shul after his first week in Slovakia, and now, as a family, they look for five crucial factors wherever they live. These entail being able to keep Shabbat, to keep kashrut and family purity laws, to celebrate chaggim, to attend a shul or prayer services, and to go about their daily lives as Jews.

With much effort on their part, they have been able to achieve this wherever they have settled.

When they lived in The Gambia, they managed to import kosher food, once bringing 300kg of kosher meat, cheese and wine in a refrigerated truck that had to be offloaded an hour before Shabbas!

Adela presents her own talk on the subject of her mikvah experiences, which have been adventurous: “In The Gambia on the Atlantic coast, we would go down to the beach at night, but I sometimes had to walk 300m to the sea at low tide, and would dive under the waves in a nightgown.”

The family were thrilled to find a mikvah and an established Jewish community in the DRC, where Jews began to settle from Rhodes Island (in Greece) since the 1930s.

These days, the couple drive the four-and-a-half-hour journey from their residence in Botswana to Johannesburg to buy kosher meat and wine, and to go to the mikvah. They are fortunate to have access to South African kosher food in Botswana as everything is imported.

They educate their children with shiurim found online, learn the parsha of the week, and get together with another religious family who lives nearby. Renna has learned to lein the Megilla for Purim, and has read it everywhere he’s lived, from The Gambia to Armenia. Ultimately, the easiest and most effective way to educate their children has been to live a Jewish life wherever they are.

He says he has always worn a kippah and has never encountered overt hostility. Jews historically didn’t settle in West Africa and for many people there, Renna has been the first and only Jew they’ve met.

Devorah and Steven Felder have lived in Israel and Kenya, and are currently living in Mumbai, on India’s west coast, due to Steven’s work as an executive at a large multinational.

Adds Devorah: “I believe that regardless of location, provided you want to, you can maintain a Jewish life anywhere. My parents instilled in me valuable Jewish traditions, and living in Israel between the ages of eight and 11 assisted me in defining the values that I wanted to raise my kids with.

“I always enjoyed hosting people for Shabbat dinner. By the time we left Nairobi in Kenya, we had established a routine of hosting Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish friends almost every Friday night.”

In terms of giving their children a Jewish education, Devorah says: “YouTube is a great resource, which helps with teaching my kids the parsha of the week. Our elder children attended Hebrew classes in Nairobi, which were facilitated by the American school that they attended. The bulk of their Jewish education has, however, been acquired at home.”

Reactions by Nairobi’s locals were positive, she says. Kenya is a very religious country, with a very high proportion of churchgoers. “Jews in general – and Israelis in particular – enjoy a high level of respect. Together with a couple of other Jewish moms, I took pride in frequently visiting the classes of my elder children to teach all the children in their grades about the various Jewish festivals. This was very well received by kids and parents.”

Kenya has a Jewish community of about 1 000 people. Nairobi houses a main synagogue – Nairobi Hebrew Congregation (NHC), which is 105 years old – as well as a small Chabad shul.

“Steve and I both served on the Board of NHC for several years, and Steve represented the Kenyan Jewish community on the board of the African Jewish Congress. The Cultural Committee at NHC was very active, arranging a number of events centred on the Jewish festivals, as well as a summer camp and a monthly Oneg Shabbat,” explains Felder.

“I led the Mitzvah Day initiative in Kenya, where we painted classrooms at an underprivileged school. In addition, Kenya boasts a small ethnic community in Nyahururu, who have been trying to convert to Judaism for quite some time. NHC hosted them for Shabbat services a few times.”

The couple say that Kenya is a beautiful country with wonderful people and unbeatable wildlife and nature. “Although they have not had the opportunity to attend Jewish schools, our children have been extremely fortunate to have grown up in three different countries, establish lasting friendships with children of multiple faiths and races, and experience an array of cultures. As a result, they are growing up with a strong sense of open-mindedness, tolerance and versatility.”

Elisa Metz grew up in the DRC. “In Kinshasa, where we lived, there was a solid Sephardi community, a mixture of Belgian (many from Rhodes Island origins) and Israeli Jews. For the first couple of years, we did not have a rabbi or a synagogue, but we used to get together at someone’s home for Shabbat services. For the High Holy festivals, we rented a hall at a local hotel which we converted into a shul (which was full) and brought in a travelling rabbi to run the services!

“We had a Jewish Centre where we all met every Sunday. This was the central aspect of our social life. After a while, Rabbi Torjman was employed and we used his lounge as the shul.

“About 20 years ago, the congregation built a large synagogue which is still there today. Although numbers have dwindled, the congregation is very active.”

Throughout her time there, Metz says being Jewish was never an issue. “They were very tolerant of differences. The government even gifted the site of the synagogue to the community.”

Astonishingly, despite the lack of huge numbers of Jews in many of these African countries, it seems that, as the saying goes, “where there’s a will, there’s a way” to still live a Jewish life across the continent.